Those who’ve passed through youth but never lived it
left jab the morning sun, jog hills, always in training,
slick with sweat, taut as cat gut,
insisting they’re always ready,
today’s a new start, all’s possible,
still feel twenty-six, even in mid fifties,
same lads they were coming home from war,
muscles earned in scout camp and boot camp,
years left for novels and senatorial speeches,
long after medals have been awarded and lost
And striving, always striving to begin again,
they stand at a mythical home plate and point
to a place far beyond their sense of knowing,
speed towards a point where glory slides,
no time left to sit on a balcony at sunset
to remember days in Nantucket with tall blonds
smelling of sea and summer and photosynthesis,
their smooth shoulders and skinny hips pressing
flesh against flesh along crashing oceans,
no memories of lawns in August sour with the decay
of mowed grass, sweet with the smell of hidden honey,
of children with unbelievably bright eyes
on Easter egg hunts, no Christmas morns in front of fires,
no smells of turkeys in ovens, of pot roasts in onions and wine,
no smoke rising from burning leaves,
no more nights of sleeping together without deceit
Faces younger than their age, they challenge you
to punch them, smack them anywhere, in kidneys,
in the solar plexus, square on the chin, go ahead,
surprise them, double your fist, let go,
they can take it
Those without names in record books
stretch against trees in parks of fog,
still in training for what has come and gone,
for what peaked one autumn years ago
And when they hear the clanging of the armor
of the men of Thebes,
they retreat within walls of empty rooms where
children no longer laugh nor women sing